Elle (ellexamines on TT & Substack)'s Reviews > Impulse

I started Impulse with really high hopes for this after enjoying Hopkins' Tricks series. Unfortunately, Impulse is a pretty terrible book, with severe issues of mental health being tackled sort of horribly and a shitty love triangle no one cares about. And besides that, it contains the most homophobic storyline I have ever had the displeasure of reading. I am not joking or exaggerating when I say this storyline genuinely reads like someone's conversion therapy manifesto.

Let's talk.

✔ Before you call me an SJW keyboard warrior so you can feel morally vindicated in your opinion: Please at least read the damn review? I'm not complaining about this just for the sake of complaining or whatever you'd like to believe. This isn't some kind of minor "negative tropes" thing. If I had less self-confidence, I genuinely cannot imagine how I would've taken this and where this book could've taken me. Like, feel free to love this book – books are always subjective. But please do let me despise this book in peace.

🌺 IT'S REALLY JUST NOT A QUALITY BOOK

Okay, this is the section where I'm a bitter salty person and I feel the need to explain why this book is just kind of generally bad ignoring all the stuff that is Problematique. Because that's who I am! Basically, it's super fucking obvious that this book wasn't outlined well or like, at all. Each one of the characters goes through so many terrible events that Hopkins cannot possibly resolve them all. She took on too many issues with only three characters, and it quickly approached a point where she didn't even bother exploring these important issues in an inoffensive way.

In terms of character, I had some major issues as well. All these characters could've been redeemable, but they're really not fleshed out? I'm not sure anyone ever told Ms. Hopkins that trauma is not a character trait.

✔ Vanessa has bipolar and kind of a judgemental asshole. That's it. I could've excused her bad behavior if she were redeemed, but she's not developed or fleshed-out, and she never really improves.
✔ Connor is a complete fuckboy and again, I could've excused it, but he's not fleshed-out. He's just boring and annoying.
✔ Tony's a decent character. Again, he's not fleshed-out quite enough, but he's a good guy. We'll talk about his arc later.

🌺 MENTAL HEALTH IS SUPER, SUPER ROMANTIC

✔ I don't think Hopkins did her research on mental health facilities. Every adult in this facility was either a villain or incompetent. Again, this is a toxic message to teens who want to help their own issues. Mental health facilities can be toxic places, yes, but they can also be great rehabilitation centers. Sticking with a negative view of rehabilitation places in every book strikes me as a bad message. This can be realistic on some occasions, it just didn't seem like the greatest plot decision.

✔ Suicide should not be used as a plot device. (view spoiler)[Connor dies essentially so Tony and Vanessa can get together without feeling bad. His death is an easy way to get tears from the audience, but the constant use of suicide simply to get tears seems incredibly insensitive to mentally ill people. (hide spoiler)] Do depressed people need stories about how they are doomed to commit suicide anyway, despite their attempts to get better? I don't speak for all depressed people, but reading a book like this or All the Bright Places in a really depressed phase would've been extremely toxic for me. “You eventually will commit suicide” is a very bleak message to give teens who feel their very existence is bleak.

✔ I'll never stop cutting, lithium or no lithium. Only love can make me stop.
I saw this quote in Octavia's awesome review, and I had to look it up because I almost didn't believe it. I'd forgotten how bad this was. Love is positioned as a cure for mental illness. Trust me, romantic love can't cure depression.

✔ There's also this whole undertone of “our illness makes us better” running through the book. I really don't feel like complaining about this because so many other books have this same exact message, but I have a post about this on my blog, if anyone's interested in general thoughts on this topic.

✔ Generally, I feel like this isn't a book for mentally ill teens. I feel like it's a book for neurotypical teens who want to feel like their life doesn't suck.
There's a quote from this review that I think sums it up best.
This book would be great to read if you think your life's shit. No matter how bad it gets for you, these kiddies have it so much worse. And if you think your life's worse than this, I recommend writing to Hopkins as you'll probably feature in her next book.
That's... well. It's just that these books don't portray the reality of being depressed or bipolar, to me. They portray the horror of it all in this way that's meant to shock you, without actually interacting or talking about mental illness in a productive way.

🌺 GAY CONVERSION IS NOT A GOOD FUCKING THING

So here's probably my biggest issue with the book.
My lifestyle has caused me a lot of pain. I hope to change that when I get out of here.
This doesn't look too bad; Tony has been a prostitute, so that's probably what he's referring too, right? Well, no. He's actually specifically referring to being gay here.

Let me repeat that: his "gay lifestyle" caused him pain. His gay "lifestyle." Caused him pain.

His redemption is becoming straight.

I cannot begin to explain how harmful "positive character development in the form of learning you're actually straight" is. A narrative implying sexual assault caused him to believe he is gay, implying that had he not been gay, he wouldn't have been sexually assaulted as much, is victim blaming and absolutely disgusting.

The idea of a gay character “realizing he's straight” has some kind of gross connotations in the first place and I don't think most straight authors have the nuanced understanding of queer experience to tackle it, but it is technically a thing that can happen to people. It's also technically likely he'd just realize he was bi, not that the possibility is ever mentioned. It's a lot rarer than homophobes would like to believe, and it's far rarer than straight people realizing they're actually gay, little as said straight people would like to believe. (I'm kidding. Mostly.) But the entire sexuality-change storyline is portrayed in an incredibly homophobic way here. It genuinely reads like fucking anti-gay propaganda. It is disgusting and it is horrifying to read.


🌺 FINAL THOUGHTS AND A WRAP-UP

Again, and I feel like a broken record at this point: Hopkins' prose is great, and I like that she's trying to speak to teens without mincing words. However, she needs to stop stereotyping neuroatypical and lgbtq people. She's not being great and representing us. She's being shitty. I can feel her fucking disdain for me through her pages and I'm so, so tired of it. I really wish I hadn't given her another chance.

And again, this review isn't meant to be an attack on you. The book is in places well-written, exceedingly emotionally manipulative, and who knows, maybe Vanessa's storyline resonated with some readers. But I'd really ask anyone who's recommending this to consider the storyline for themselves and really, genuinely consider the canon of the book. Because this is really gross.

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